Russia’s own propaganda machines are failing to quell criticism of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as the Kremlin struggles to hide the reality of the war.
On Vladimir Solovyov’s prime-time television talk show, An Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, on Russia-1, his guests began openly criticizing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Solovyov, a strong proponent of Putin and an outspoken critic of Ukraine’s independence, interrupted his guests to quickly shut down any rumblings of dissent on his show.
The first criticism came from Karen Shakhnazarov, a filmmaker and a usually reliable state pundit who had previously signed a letter in support of Putin’s annexation of Crimea. But on Solovyov’s show, Shakhnazarov said, “I have a hard time imagining taking cities such as Kyiv. I can’t imagine how that would look,” and noted that Putin’s invasion risked isolating Russia.
He called for an end to the conflict, the Telegraph reported, saying, “If this picture starts to transform into an absolute humanitarian disaster, even our close allies like China and India will be forced to distance themselves from us.”
He added, “This public opinion, with which they’re saturating the entire world, can play out badly for us…Ending this operation will stabilize things within the country.”
Later during the broadcast, Semyon Bagdasarov, a Russian member of parliament, also criticized the invasion of Ukraine, and likened it to Afghanistan, an embarrassing military blunder for Russia that some analysts believe was a catalyst for the fall of the Soviet Union.
“Do we need to get into another Afghanistan, but even worse?” Bagdasarov asked, adding that in Ukraine, “there are more people, and they’re more advanced in their weapon handling.”
“We don’t need that. Enough already,” he said.
Not alone
Solovyov’s program isn’t the only one to show cracks in Russia’s media propaganda machine. On the Russian Ministry of Defense’s television channel, Zvezda, a serving army officer in Putin’s “special military operation” (Russian journalists are banned from calling it an invasion or a war) said Russian soldiers were dying in Ukraine.
“Our guys over there, from Donetsk and Luhansk, and our special operation forces are dying,” he said, dramatically adding, “our youth are dying.”
The presenter interrupted him and called for an end to his remarks, saying, “Can you stop now? I will tell you what our guys are doing there. Our guys are smashing the fascist snakes. It’s a triumph of the Russian army. It’s a Russian renaissance.”
Hospital bombing
The misinformation crisis came to head on Thursday, after the government couldn’t quite decide if it had bombed a Ukrainian hospital or not.
After Russia claimed there had been no patients in a hospital that it bombed in the city of Mariupol, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy retorted that three people including a child had been killed.
After the bombing, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed, without providing evidence, that Ukrainian forces had “equipped combat positions,” while Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Reuters, “Russian forces do not fire on civilian targets.”
Since then, however, different parts of the Russian government have issued outright denials that a bombing even happened.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry denied the hospital bombing, with spokesperson Zakharova calling it “information terrorism.” The Defense Ministry also later denied claims the Russian military bombed the hospital, noting no air strikes on ground targets were performed in the area. It then accused Ukraine of staging the incident.
Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said, “The alleged air strike was completely a staged provocation…that can deceive the Western public but not an expert.”
Journalist clampdown
As Putin’s own state pundits and officials stumble in their defense of the government’s official war narrative, his regulators have cracked down ever harder on independent media in the country.
Last week Russia’s media watchdog kicked radio station Ekho Moskvy and the last independently run TV station, TV Rain, off the air. In a Telegram message posted by Russian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, the two outlets were accused of purposefully and systematically disseminating “information calling for extremist and violent acts,” and had their broadcast rights cut by the country’s communications censor, known as Roskomnadzor.
Dmitry A. Muratov, a Russian journalist who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for protecting freedom of expression and democracy in Novaya Gazeta, noted his newspaper was on the verge of shutting down as well. This was their latest defiant cover.
Muratov told the New York Times, “Everything that’s not propaganda is being eliminated.”
In a further crackdown, Russia’s parliament passed a law last Friday that would increase jail time to up to 15 years for anyone intentionally spreading “fake news” about the military. Many social media sites have also pulled out of or been banned in Russia. Russians found they could no longer access Twitter, Facebook, or TikTok, though Twitter has since unveiled a “dark web” version of its service, so people in Russia can access it without being found out by the authorities.
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